109 minutes of profanity-laced hilarity

In The Loop is basically a film version of the BBC television show The Thick of It. I’m sure any British readers out there already realize this, and conversely, I’m sure practically no American readers know this. If the television series is anywhere near the quality of this film, I’ll be a happy man once I track it down.

In The Loop is a scathingly, brilliantly hilarious political satire that pretty much never stops with its one-liners and vitriolic arguments.

It’s pretty obvious early on — or from any of the trailers — that In The Loop is poking fun at the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. There are people on both sides that want to go to war and vice versa, and they are all entwined in a web of confusion and absurdity.

The events of the movie are kickstarted when British minister Simon Foster (played by Tom Hollander) says that war is “unforeseeable” in a radio interview, and the media runs with it, as Simon is berated and emasculated by his superior Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi). Simon doesn’t quite realize the storm he’s created until he is confronted in the street by reporters and provides yet another soundbite that is blasted over the airwaves. It just seems that every time he opens his mouth, things only get worse.

Starting on the day of the “unforeseeable” quote, Toby Wright (Chris Addison) becomes Simon’s assistant throughout the entire affair, shuttling between meetings in both the UK and America. He manages to do damage of his own, accidentally leaking information to the press and also destroying his romantic relationship back home in probably the most embarrassing fashion imaginable. Simon and Toby make for an immensely amusing disaster of a team.

There's a lot of this in the film.

Meanwhile, the two Americans they work with, the US Assistant Secretary of State Karen Clarke (Mimi Kennedy) and her assistant Liza (Anna Chlumsky), seem on the ball and mostly treat the two Brits as the bumbling — if well-intentioned — idiots they are. They work together with Gen. George Miller (James Gandolfini) to try to stop the seemingly unstoppable march to war. They are mostly up against another Assistant Sec. of State, Linton Barwick (David Rasche), who is naturally the most unlikeable character in the film. I think you can guess how it turns out.

The star of the film is undoubtedly Capaldi, who seems to be ripping someone apart in every other scene. Every time he opens his mouth, a geyser of expletives shoots out, hitting whoever happens to be around square in the face. You may think *he* would be the most unlikeable character, but it’s hard to hate someone who is capable of effortlessly eviscerating anyone within shouting distance. There’s a reason why the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay — and that reason is that insults have never been piled on top of each other so well outside of a David Mamet film.

Probably the only complaints I can think of are the subplot that has Steve Coogan complaining to Simon about a wall that is about to fall and possibly crush his mom and perhaps that the movie just kinda of ends. But the former is still pretty funny and the latter — well, I wasn’t really watching the film for a twist or tidy, meaningful ending. I think it works fine and shows that politics just go on. And go on as dysfunctional as they’ve always been.

No related posts.